(W)rite mail
Once you've pressed "W" you're asked who you want to write mail to. If someone's name is a possible match it will ask you if you meant this person, then that person, and so on. If you say no to everyone on the list it will abort. (this will become clear after you've written mail a few times) Once you accept the name of a possible recipient you will then be allowed to enter your message. All the normal color codes apply.

If the person you are writing to is of opposite gender and you haven't flirted with a player yet today, or flirted since killing the dragon, you will get a chance to write romantic mail to the other player. There are a number of choices:

*If "clean" mode is on you won't get the option to Invite him/her to your room. The option to propose doesn't appear unless your charm is 100 or more.

If the flirtation is accepted both players will get varying amounts of experience, depending on the action and their current level. If the flirtation is rejected the inviting person will lose experience and the rejecting person will gain some experience.

If the flirtation is an invitation to the inn, and it is accepted, both players will get credit for a lay.

If you propose and are accepted you and the person you proposed to will be married. As you log on for the first time you will be asked if you feel positive or negative about your marriage partner. This question will be asked in various ways. If you say you feel negative you will be divorced and both you and your spouse's charm will drop to 50. There are similar results when your spouse is deleted for inactivity.

Married couples and single female characters will occasionally have children. Marriages, divorces, and childbirth are all noted in the daily log. As noted earlier, you get one extra forest fight for each child.

(C)onjugality listThis will show you who is married to whom, including those married to Sethable and violet. It is generally not a good idea to try to flirt with a player who is married to someone else!

(X)pert Mode
This let's you control whether you see the whole menu or just the line listing the letters for the various commands, similar to the way the expert mode on most BBSs work.

(P)eople online
This shows you who is online currently. This includes you. The time of arrival is also noted.

(S)laughter other players
This is how you attack other players if they are not staying at the inn. You can attack any player who is still alive and not staying at the inn unless they have gone off into "limbo". BBS and IGM lockups can cause a player to be in "another place" called "maint". Attacking other players is sometimes a good way to advance levels more quickly, especially if you've been given help by cash transfers.

This brings up another submenu:

(L)ist warriors
(S)laughter another player
(R)eturn to town
(E)xamine dirt
(W)rite in dirt

{S} (L)ist warriors in the field
This will show who is available to attack, and will indicate which players are currently online. As noted earlier, players will sometimes be in "maint".

{S} (S)laughter a warrior
This lets you actually attack another player. If the name you enter matches player(s) you will get a list of matches and be asked one by one if that is the one you're after. If they are not available to attack for some reason then you'll get the appropriate message. If they are available to attack you will get a message about them brandishing a dangerous looking X, with X being the player's current weapon and then you are asked if you are sure you want to attack him/her. If you say yes then the battle will begin.

Sometimes the other player will strike first. If you survive this then you'll get several options, which will also come up if you get the first strike.

You can (A)ttack the other player, view your (S)tats or (R)un away. If you have any special skill use points they will also be shown. This is pretty much like fighting forest monsters, with a couple of exceptions. You can use your defensive mystical skills against any opponent but offensive skills can be used only when the player is above your current level. Sometimes offensive special skills do only one damage point. This appears to happen in situations where such an attack would otherwise do no damage. This has to do with your offense, their defense and a random factor.

As with forest fights fairies offer protection and you can lose your horse or any children you have, with the usual results. If you try to run away you won't always be successful. The result of the battle will be posted in the daily log.

If you lose the battle you will be dead and will lose any gold you have on hand, as well as 10% of your experience.

If you win you get whatever gold 1/2 of the gems the player has and 1/2 of their experience. (if this would put you over 2 billion experience you won't get the experience points, but this means that you already have over 1 billion experience points so unless you're trying to get the top experience points, who cares?). You will sometimes get another gem as well. This is a good way to jump levels, if you can pull it off. You will also get a chance to make a note in the daily log that will go along with the announcement of your victory. I like to do a parody of the player's name. If the player's name is "wizard", for example, I will say "we're off to slay the wizard!" or if their name is "highlander" I'll say "in the end there can only be one!". The usual color codes apply in these remarks but you only get one line of text so plan carefully!

Player fights are often a very good way to get experience. If you are well armed you can sometimes jump from level 1 to level 12 in one day. In many games, however, you'll log on and usually find that everyone is dead except some low level players who are staying at the inn. Thus, sometimes there is nobody to attack.

In other games, however, there are usually a lot of people to attack, some of them weak players with a lot of experience points. So you may get most of your experience points from forest fights or you may get most of it from player fights.

If the other player is currently online you'll get involved in what is known as an "online duel". There are special rules concerning online duels. Sometimes the challenger gets the first blow, other times the player being challenged gets the first blow. Both players will get one less player fight. That won't matter to the player who gets killed if one of them do.

In an online duel you occasionally get a chance to "yell" something at your opponent. In online duels you cannot use your special skills and a fairy does you no good. As far as I know, you cannot lose children or a horse in an online duel.

Regardless of the outcome of an online duel a special message will appear in the daily log.

It is generally not considered very nice to challenge a player to an online duel against their will, especially a weaker player who hasn't got a chance. Keep this in mind!

{S} (R)eturn to town
This will take you back to the main menu.

{S} (E)xamine dirt
This is yet another message area, but unlike other message areas, this one shows only the last message entered. The message can bequite long, and the normal color codes apply. The top of the screen will show the name of the player who has the most player kills and how many player kills they have. If two players are tied for the top, the one with the lowest record number will be shown. If nobody has killed anybody, then the player in slot number one will be shown. If you've just made one or more kills to rise to the top of the rankings you may have to leave the game before being properly listed as the "most dangerous" player.

{S} (W)rite in dirt
This is how you can write in the dirt yourself. You must have killed another player in this session in order to be eligible to write in the dirt. Sometimes even entering an IGM will make you ineligible to write in the dirt unless you kill again.

[back to main menu]

(A)bdul's armor
Just as you need weapons to fight monsters, you also need armor. Similar to weapons, armors add to your defensive strength. Here is a table showing the various armor available along with the cost of the armor and the defensive strength it gives you:

AVAILABLE AROMOR

Armor #

Armour name

Price

Defense added

1

Coat

200

1

2

Heavy Coat

1,000

3

3

Leather Vest

3,000

10

4

Bronze Armour

10,000

15

5

Iron Armour

30,000

25

6

Graphite Armour

100,000

35

7

Erdrick's Armour

150,000

50

8

Armour of Death

200,000

75

9

Able's Armour

400,000

100

10

Full Body Armour

1,000,000

150

11

Blood Armour

4,000,000

225

12

Magic Protection

10,000,000

300

13

Belar's Mail

40,000,000

400

14

Golden Armour

100,000,000

600

15

Armour Of Lore

400,000,000

1000

Note that to figure out how much will be gained by buying a certain weapon/armor you must take into account the amount added by your current weapon/armor which you must trade in. So if you upgrade from Magic protection to Belar's mail your net defense strength gain will be only 100.

(V)iew your stats
This lets you see your statistics. This is the same information which is shown to you just after you enter through the (E)nter command, before you see the daily log. Here is a sample:

(T)urgon's warrior training
Once you have enough experience to get to a certain level, this is how you actually get to that level.
You have several options:

(Q)uestion master
(A)ttack master
(V)iew statistics
(R)eturn to main menu
now for more detail:

{T} (Q)uestion master
If you question your master, he'll either tell you that you are ready to advance a level or will tell you how many experience points you need before you are ready to advance a level. Here are the experience points you need to advance to the various levels:

Level

exp needed

2

100

3

400

4

1,000

5

4,000

6

10,000

7

40,000

8

100,000

9

400,000

10

1,000,000

11

4,000,000

12

10,000,000

{T} (A)ttack master
If you have enough experience points to advance a level you can challenge your master to a duel. If you try to attack your master but don't have the necessary experience points you'll find yourself holding air and you won't be allowed to challenge your master again until tomorrow. If you are ready to challenge your master the battle will begin.

As noted earlier, special skills don't apply here, not even defensive mystical skills. You can, however, use extra hitpoints gained by the jennie code and you can use a fairy. You can also lose your children and/or a horse with the usual results.

If you heal yourself before challenging your master then you generally will be successful in your attack. The one exception is when you are trying to get to level two. Often you will get 100 experience, but won't have enough attack/defense points for a successful battle. You usually need some extra edge such as a fairy, extra HP gained through jennie HOTT, or a 3000 gold weapon/armor.

If your challenge is not successful, you won't die, but you won't be able to challenge your master again until tomorrow. If you are successful you will advance a level, get more HP, offense and defense. Once you get enough experience to advance another level you can challenge your new master. In some games it is possible to advance several levels in one day.

While we are on the subject of levels, let's take a look at exactly what you gain by advancing levels. Here are the "stats" for each level, with no armor, no weapon, and no enhancements given by turning in gems or through the various other means available. To figure out what your HitPoints, Attack strength and Defense strength will be at a given level you'll have to take into account any enhancements you've obtained and your weapon, armor.

BASE STATS FOR EACH LEVEL

Level

HP

Attack strength

Defense strength

1

20

5

0

2

30

10

2

3

45

17

5

4

65

27

10

5

95

39

20

6

145

59

35

7

220

94

57

8

345

144

92

9

530

219

152

10

780

329

232

11

1130

479

352

12

1680

679

502

As you advance a level the game will tell you how much you're gaining. When you go from level 1 to level 2, for example, the game will tell you that you will gain 10 HP, 5 attack strength and 2 defense strength. When you go from 5 to 6 it tell you that you have gained 50 HP, 20 attack strength and 15 defense strength.

{T} (V)iew hall of fame
This will show all the players who have killed the dragon, how many times they have killed the dragon (this is called a heroic deed), and their current level. Players are listed according to their number of deeds, with ties resolved by listing the player with the lowest slot first. If nobody has slain the dragon then the game will say "sad times indeed, their are no heroes in this realm."

NOTE: If you have reached level 12, the game will show you a message about seeking out the red dragon and then kick you back to the main menu. Thus, level 12 players cannot visit the hall of fame. bummer...

{T} (R)eturn to main menu
As you might expect, this takes you back to the main menu!

[back to the main menu]

(L)ist warriors
This lists the players and shows you some things about them. Here is a sample listing:

The "F" before the player's name indicates a female player. The next letter indicates the player's current profession. After this is the player's name, followed by their current experience point then their level. The "Mastered" column shows any special skills in which a player has 20 or more skill points. If a player has 40 skill points the "D" "M" or "T" will be in white. The last column lists whether the player is dead or alive.

This functions the same as the (L)ist players command in the entry menu.

(D)aily News
This let's you look at today's news, yesterday's news, or continue, just as with the (D)aily News command in the entry menu.

(O)ther places
You've heard, no doubt, about In Game Modules. This command is what let's you run them. If no IGMs are listed, that means that none are installed. You'll have to take this issue up with your sysop. Some sysops know about IGMs and don't wish to run them, others just don't know how.

For those not familiar with the concept, an IGM is a program which is run from within LORD itself. It is kind of a door within a door. Some IGMs are really games in themselves, others will modify the LORD game itself. Some modify it too much and are really destructive!

I'm not going to go into great detail on individual IGMs, there are hundreds of them and I have experience with only a few. Perhaps in a future revision of this FAQ I'll have reviewsof some IGMs in a separate section.

What I will do is mention a few quirks that can pop up in games with IGMs installed. These are not really bugs in LORD or bugs in the IGMs, these are simply quirks which occur because an IGM let's you do something that you can't do in the game, and this has consequences that the IGM author never imagined.

Double Marriage
Some IGMs let you change your gender (sex). This could cause you to be married to a member of your own gender. This can also allow you to be married to both Violet *and* Sethable at the same time! Both marriages will show up in your stats and both will be shown in the the daily log and in the conjugality list.

Negative skills
The skill points you have for a given skill class is stored in a single byte signed integer [huh?]. This means that if your skill points go over 127, the game will show this as negative skill points and as a result you will not have any use points! Since the game doesn't let you get more than 40 skill points, this isn't a problem unless IGMs are installed. The IGMs I've seen which let you increase your skills *don't* check for this, so be very careful if your skill points get over 120. If you let them get over 127, you'll have to keep going until they get over 255, at which point they will go back to zero and then you can start over.

>The fast breeder bug is probably the worst bug in L.O.R.D. , even though it does require the use of an IGM. By simply changing the name of your weapon or armor you can get unlimited children which leads to unlimited forest fights, and the ability to kill anyone or any thing without even attacking them!

The "fast breeder" bug
I guess you could say I've saved the best for last. Double marriage is a neat trick, and negative skills can be very annoying, but thisone is in a whole different category! Many IGMs let you rename your weapon and/or your armor. This has no impact on the effectiveness of your armor or weapon, calling your long sword a "Death sword" will *not* allow you to beat the crap out of all the other players. The trouble is that the IGM will typically let you call your weapon or armor anything you want to call it. This allows you to use color codes, which can make things interesting, but there are two problems that crop up. First, people take advantage of it by calling their weapon by "obscene" names which produces amusing, but often sick, results when someone attacks them. I'll let you use your imagination there.

Second, and far more critically, "anything" means that you call your armor or weapon "`K". You might think "so what!" or "why would anyone want to do that?" Well, if you name either your armor or your weapon "`K" then every time you bring up your stats you will get another child! By holding down "V" from the main menu you can get hundreds, even thousands of children. The next day you'll get hundreds, even thousands of extra forest fights!

As if that wasn't enough, when you have several hundred (or more) children the child death sequence kicks in every time you would have otherwise taken damage. This makes you invulnerable while you are online (except in online duels)!

Without an IGM this could never happen, since the game doesn't let you name your armor or weapon, so it's not really a bug in the game, and since the IGM functions exactly as intended this isn't a bug in the IGM either. This is just an unforeseen consequence of an IGM feature that wasn't very well thought out. BTW, this doesn't work if you just change your own name to "`K" so don't bother trying it.

For more about IGMs and a special announcement, see the MISC section!

(M)ake announcement
This let's you make an announcement which will appear in the daily log. The normal color codes apply. As with most other message areas, you end your announcement by entering a blank line.

(Q)uit to fields
This takes you back to the BBS and leaves you outside where anyone can attack you.

[1] [hidden]

This shows you the game configuration. Here is a sample:

** GAME STATISTICS 3.55 **
This game has been running for 13 days.
You are playing a REGISTERED game.
Game can be FINISHED by getting 15 heroic deeds
There are currently 5 people playing.
Players are deleted after 1000 days of inactivity.
Clean mode is OFF! (Thank the stars!)
Transferring Funds is enabled, max of 1000000 per transfer.
You can do this unlimited times per day.
Need an ego boost? This is what you overhear being said about
yourself. "She is ok..If you don't care about outward appearances."

This is pretty much selfexplanatory. If the game is unregistered this screen will note that it is "not winnable".

If the sysop has decided to not let the game be finished, the heroic deeds field will simply say that the game is set to run indefinitely. If the field contains a number of deeds then when a player kills the dragon this many times the game will be over and instead of getting the usual message when killing the dragon the player will get a message telling him that his quest is over and the ancient magic that kept the dragon alive is no more. Then, when players enter the game they will get a message saying that the game is over and suggesting that they ask their sysop to use the "R" command in LORDCFG. If the sysop does this then the game will be reset. In theory at least, this will be just like a new game. There have been reports of some data files not being properly reset, but I haven't been able to track this down. Most notably, some people have found that Olivia seems to recognize them in a newly reset game as someone who had been mean to her.

The sysop can, as an alternative, delete the file that indicates the game has been won. If he does this, then the next time the winner kills the dragon, or when someone else reaches the number of required deeds, the game will once again be over. This will continue until the sysop resets the game or changes the configuration.

If clean mode is enabled then you cannot get laid, either by Violet/Sethable or by other players or by the maidens in the forest. This means that you cannot make the list in the darkhorse tavern. I'm not sure whether or not you can have children.

Transferring funds will be restricted as shown in the next to the last entry. This has a limiting factor on alliances and the sysop will set this parameter according to his/her knowledge of the game and how he/she feels about players making alliances.

The last entry shows you what players will see if they decide to flirt with you.

[2] [hidden]
This will turn RIP graphics on/off. Your terminal emulation is detected at login or taken from the drop file, but in case it isn't properly detected or you change your terminal after entering the game, this command will let you enable/disable RIP graphics.

[3] [hidden]
This will turn ANSI graphics on/off. Normally you won't need to use this command but in case the game setting doesn't currently match your emulation, you can press 3 to set things straight.